One hundred fifty years since Churchill's birthday
"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” -Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948 (London: Cassell, 1950), 347.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” -House of Commons, 22 October 1945.
"….there can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. …liberty, in all its forms is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism. …there is to be one State to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State is to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, and the arch-caucus boss.
A Socialist State once thoroughly completed in all its details and aspects… could not afford opposition. Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.
But I will go farther. I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart that no Socialist system can be established without a political police.
No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.
And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk-the common people, as they like to call them in America-where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?"
"A communist is like a crocodile: when it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up"
""You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." This was Winston Churchill's statement after Neville Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich Pact with Hitler."
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” -House of Commons, 22 October 1945.
"….there can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. …liberty, in all its forms is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism. …there is to be one State to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State is to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, and the arch-caucus boss.
A Socialist State once thoroughly completed in all its details and aspects… could not afford opposition. Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.
But I will go farther. I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart that no Socialist system can be established without a political police.
No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.
And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk-the common people, as they like to call them in America-where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?"
"A communist is like a crocodile: when it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up"
""You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." This was Winston Churchill's statement after Neville Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich Pact with Hitler."
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."